12-30-2015, 07:42 AM
It's a nice poem overall. I like that it is about a personal experience of yours and the impact it had on you, rather than an attempt to attack an abstract concept out of nothing. Which is to say, it feels very organic and personal. On a bit of a side-note it actually reminds me a bit of a nice prose poem/short story (depending on how you want to categorize it) by Georges Chateaureynaud called "A Citizen Speaks."
Anyway, this isn't the place for a complete line-for-line breakdown, but here are a handful of things that jumped out at me:
1) I think the "stalky, gone-wild, / flowering shrubbery" is a bit clumsy. I think it might flow a bit better here to rearrange the words a bit. For example, I think that "flowering shrubbery gone-wild" has a bit more natural flow to it.
2) The end of your first stanza gets a little comma-heavy. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it's something to be mindful of.
3) In the second stanza, I'm not sure you need to say "St. Francis of Assisi". To me it makes the line sound heavy and clumsy. Removing "of Assisi" helps the flow, in my opinion, and it's not like anyone will be reasonably confused as to which St. Francis is being talked about.
4) I really like the third and fourth stanzas. Definitely the best parts of the poem. I like the implicit connection drawn between you and the statue with the repetition of "absent of mind."
Anyway, this isn't the place for a complete line-for-line breakdown, but here are a handful of things that jumped out at me:
1) I think the "stalky, gone-wild, / flowering shrubbery" is a bit clumsy. I think it might flow a bit better here to rearrange the words a bit. For example, I think that "flowering shrubbery gone-wild" has a bit more natural flow to it.
2) The end of your first stanza gets a little comma-heavy. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it's something to be mindful of.
3) In the second stanza, I'm not sure you need to say "St. Francis of Assisi". To me it makes the line sound heavy and clumsy. Removing "of Assisi" helps the flow, in my opinion, and it's not like anyone will be reasonably confused as to which St. Francis is being talked about.
4) I really like the third and fourth stanzas. Definitely the best parts of the poem. I like the implicit connection drawn between you and the statue with the repetition of "absent of mind."